Please tell us why you "Strongly Dis-Like" this Charger so much. Tell us the reasons why it's ugly. Is it the four doors? Is it the Charger name? Is it simply ugly to you?


Let us know why in this thread. Express you feelings, even list the reasons. We would love to here the reasons listed and clear.

Please keep it civilized.


READY? SET! GO! EXPRESS YOUR FEELINGS!

 

I like the Charger for the most part. Most of the complaints are about the four-doors. The only one's I have are that it's an aerodynamic faliure and it's sides don't have anything original or creative. Everything else just shouts, that's a sweet car!


-Matt-

 

Are you really sure you want to open this can of worms again Chase? But since you asked...

1. 2 too many doors.
2. The front end is hideous.
3. The interior is too bland, and too magnum.
4. The rear belongs to a galant, please return it to its proper owner.
5. Lack of engine choices, for example the sxt should have been offered with a 4.7 H.O.
6. If your going to do "heritage colors", make sure they look like the original color. Nasty burnt orange/copper is not GoManGo.
7. Where is the manual trans option?
8. Bastardizing the Charger name.

I think I'm done, but I'll edit if I think of something more.

Joe

 

Man Joe, that's exactly what I was going to say.

But it's not that I really hate the car, but more the reasons I won't own one.

 

I think Joe covered it all pretty well. If I can expand a little bit, the overall styling, other than the grille, is completely undistinctive. There are so many other sedans out there that have similar styling, depending on which part of it you're looking at. And the grille is basically a misplaced truck grille- just doesn't look like it belongs with the rest of the car. DCX also needs to make up their minds about the retro theme- they refuse to do any retro designs, but then they use all kinds of retro names, retro paint names, etc.... either do retro, or don't! Can't pick and choose which parts of 'retro' you want to do! The name has got to go.... too much in the way of history and expectations among the long-time loyal Chrysler followers for them to accept a plain people-mover sedan as a 'Charger'. By and large, the younger crowd is the one that embraces this car so readily- it's those of us that remember the originals that so strongly object to the name. Then again, whatever they called it, it's not something I would have been intersted in buying- all they succeeded in doing was pi$$ing off alot of long-time Chrysler fans with the name.

 

Personaly I don't hate the looks of the Charger at all, it's a really nice looking car, the only thing I hate is the name, it's simply not a Charger and they shouldn't have butchered the Charger name by slapping it on some sedan, it should have been called the Intrepid, Magnum sedan, or if they wanted to resurect an old name do it right and call it the Polara or Diplomat, you know, old Dodges that were large 4 door sedans, not mid size 2 coupes, honestly calling the new Charger a Charger is the same as if they went and dropped the hemi in the Caravan and called it a Challenger.

 

it is not so much that i hate the charegr by any stretch. here are my feelings on it...joe did a fine job of voicing the issues that most people have with it. you guys who go on about how its only a name, and it shouldnt matter, are right. the fact it that DCX marketed this as "the charger returns", but it hasnt. the charger was a pure performance car, not a family sedan, hemi or not. when they began talking of the return of the charger, people who are fans of the original charger expected it to at least be somewhat similar to the original, but with modern technology in performance, design, and aerodynamics. while the GTO may simply be an austrialian holden with a bigger engine, but it does still share basic traits with the original model. its a RWD, high performance coupe, offered in a manual. it embodies all of the things that made the muscle car era GTO so popular.

i dont like the fact that the use of the name is no more than a marketing scheme. let there be no mistake, this charger is just the new intrepid. theyc reated a bunch of hype about the return of the charger, but it turned out not to be charger-like at all. there was no need to name this car the charger if its nothing like the other charger...imagine if ford just decided to make the mustang a sedan next year, offered only in an automatic...or i GM released the 2007 camaro and firebird as sedans, with auto tranny only.

i really dont like the back end. it is very bland, and it really is VERY near the back end of the new galant. it has always been my opinion that if a car isnt at least offered in a manual tranny, it really isnt meant to be a performance car. the SRT8 300C is fast, but its a luxury sedan...not a performance car. if youre going to offer it as a sedan, that is fine, but not everyone wants/needs a sedan, so offer a coupe to those who dont want a sedan.

it bothers me a bit that chrysler has sort of gotten too lazy to really develop new cars, so they create a platform like the LX platform, and build most of their cars on that. like it or not, they could have very easily called the charger the magnum sedan.

the car is a fine looking sedan. i think that it has a fairly aggressive styling to the front end, but the back end REALLY doesnt fit with the front.

Its a fine sedan...with *****. But they led people to believe that it would be a muscle car charger reincarnated. Im just not a sedan person.

 

This will no doubt take a long time, mainly because I'm a lousy typist.

First off, the most important thing to say again (because it bears repeating) is that "hate" is too strong a word, but I'll take it's use here in the spirit which I think it was meant.
Strongly dislike is a more accurate term; and at that, it's important to say that if you happen to like or even own a new Charger it doesn't mean I'll dislike you in any sense of the word...never mind hate you.

Now to the car. Alot of this is rehash.

Being a 40-something white guy, I grew up admiring all MoPar musclecars, and even the non-muscular versions of the same cars.
I came of age in 1979; back when, for a few bucks, you could buy an old Charger, Road Runner, Challenger, 'Cuda, Dart or Duster. You would need to spend countless hours wrenching and welding on these cars to get them to the point where they possessed a modicum of safety and reliabilty, for most of them had been thrashed 'n trashed, but it was fun and rewarding and I met lots of interesting people along the way.
1980 was the automotive dark ages for the entire industry, and Chrysler Corporation in particular, with Lee Iaccocca going to Congress with hat in hand.
The cars?
K-Cars, Omni's...four cylinder boredom, choked further by emissions laws.
But we as MoPar fans stayed loyal, wrenches at the ready, because we knew that MoPars were a breed better, and we got many chances to prove that old MoPar iron was better by far than a new Camaro or Trans-Am....and without the payment book.
The Chargers were in a league by themselves as far as I'm concerned, with every bit of brawn that Ma MoPar had ever concocted wrapped in love-at-first-sight drop dead beauty. The car was a masterpiece ,particularly the second-gen, and even those who didn't own them could take pride in the fact they were MoPar fans and the Charger was a MoPar.
I took pride in the fact that even though by then (the early eighties) the sight of a Chrysler product on a Nascar track was a thing of the past, there was a time when various Charger models so completely dominated the competition that they were, in effect, banned from competition.
Let the Chevy guys brag all they want, they never had that on their resume!

Fast forward to the late eighties. There are real "car guys" at the New Chrysler Corporation and they're working on this thing called the Viper. A V-10 powered 'Vette killer that Carroll Shelby had a hand in concieving.
Will they really build this thing?
Nah.
They built it!
Next came a line of "cab-forward" cars, the Intrepid being a more exciting, affordable car than I thought I'd ever see again.

Along came the late nineties and we're going racing again!
And there was a new concept of the Charger. It had four doors, but it was still a beauty, and it reminded me of days I thought I'd never see again.
We thought they'd never build the Viper, never build exciting cars again, never go racing again, and they had resolved to do all of those things, so why not believe they would build this new Charger or something like it?

Why not?
Mr Eaton decided to sell out to Daimler Benz, the purveyors of stodginess and European snobbery.
We all know that had they gotten to Chrysler very much earlier, the second gen 'trep would have stayed a computer model. Nascar racing? Forget it. A Charger? We'll see.

We'll see indeed.
We'll see, in Trevor Creed's own words "if the name sells".
While he was asking about the name; iconic and loaded with heritage; why didn't he ask those loyal followers of a once ailing automaker?
We're not hard to find!
We're the ones that Dodge Motorsports took pride in counting at Nascar events.
We're the ones at the car shows, big and small, every spring and summer.
Now we're the ones on web boards like this one (including those who like the new Charger).
How much easier could it be?
What more pleasant way could a Dodge marketing researcher spend a few weekends, a few hours on the 'net, than among the company's most loyal friends?
Apparently they don't care about any of that.

They care so little about the feelings of their most loyal fans that they'll make fodder of us, portraying us as mindless morons in an old Duster for instance.
I realize that the ad I'm referring to isn't a Charger ad, but it does bely a real stinking attitude they have at Dodge.

Yes, the car's grille is atrocious in my view...as one other has already said "it doesn't belong on something called a Charger" and it is similar in overall appearance to scores of other cars.
The rear end is lackluster at best, looking like a raped Intrepid, and please remember, I like the Intrepid. A Charger should be a Charger in it's entire essence.
Two doors would have helped, but even with four doors, the car could have spoken to us like the special car a Charger should be, had Trevor Creed not been on whatever agenda he was on, damning any effort to use cues from the old Chargers in this design. Creed even referred to the second-gen as "rolling sculpture".
Rolling sculpture, but Mr. Creed's ego apparently wouldn't allow the new car to emulate the old in any way.

The '06 Charger isn't the first homely car that's ever been built, and it's disappointing looks are not the real issue with me.
It's an attitude problem; and the new Charger just personifies the problem with it's disappointing looks, as if to say "we own the rights to the name of this car (true) and we'll dictate to you what you want in a car...not just any car mind you, but a car you adored while we languished in obscurity."
"Thanks for your loyalty, SSSSuckers"

 

i'd have to disagree with you on that statement, are you saying a Ferrari FXX or a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren aren't ment to be a perfomance car? neither have an actual manual tranny, the FXX has a 6 speed semi auto with paddle shifters and the SLR has a 5 speed auto, no full manual on either, both will do 0-60 in <4 seconds, top speeds of >200MPH, and 1/4 mile in <12 seconds.

 

I think the interior looked great for the most part. You can't just go insane with the interior or no one would buy it.

You could say that possibly, and I agree to some standpoint. But then again that Ferrari FXX I think it was, has an automatic. It's pure performance packed into one beast.



-Matt-